Elements
by Holly4
Summary: The further Wesley drifts from redemption, the closer he comes to the one person with the power to save him.
1. Earth

**Elements**

Rating: Adult  
Timeline: Throughout _Angel the Series._  
Summary: The further Wesley drifts from redemption, the closer he comes to the one person with the power to save him.  
Warnings: Violence, torture, language, sexual content, references to underage sex.  
Pairings: Wesley/Faith, hints at Wesley/Fred, references to Wesley/Lilah, Angel/Cordelia, Angel/Nina, Faith/Wood, and Spike/Buffy  
Notes: There are bits of dialogue borrowed from assorted _Angel_ episodes scattered throughout. Thanks to spikeslovebite and meganpeta for betaing, and to vampkiss for the gorgeous banner/icons.

Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. They are being used out of love and admiration, and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

**Earth**

There was rarely a man in the world brave enough to ask the question: _where did I go wrong?_ and genuinely seek an answer. Wesley knew, for most of his life had been spent fleeing from the truth of his shortcomings. Be it his failure to acquire his father's approval, no matter how hard he pressed onward in his studies, his failure as an expert in his chosen field, even his failure as a man of courage—Wesley had only recently taken the turn down the path which would force him to face his fears. To admit his inadequacies and attempt to win the respect of everyone he had ever disappointed.

To ask the terrifying question: _where did I go wrong?_ without flinching.

Wesley wasn't there yet, and oddly, he had accepted this. He wasn't ready to ask the hard questions. He wasn't ready to look inside himself. He didn't want to see what remained. He didn't want any reminders of how very far he had to go until the journey was complete. For the time being, he was content to cower. To take baby steps toward the inevitable destination. To keep from seeing his own reflection.

However, it was difficult to remain detached when the embodiment of one's greatest failure was standing only feet away.

More so when said embodiment had dedicated the last several hours to making him bleed. He was tied to a chair in a dead man's apartment, a gag stuffed in his mouth and his hands bound behind his back.

His own words rang back at him with mocking irony he couldn't ignore.

_I was your watcher, Faith. I know the real you. _

There was no Real Faith. Not anymore. The Real Faith was dead and buried somewhere within the hollow shell of what his destruction had left behind. She was the face of his collapse, and he hated her. He hated her more than he hated the cuts in his body or the feel of blood oozing between flaps of torn skin. He hated her more than he hated the knowledge of what was to come. Five methods of torture, she'd said. Blunt. Sharp. Cold. Hot. Loud.

She had come to punish him. To do to him what he'd done to her.

Only she was going to do it in a way where the wounds wouldn't be left to fester beneath layers of skin. These weren't psychological inflictions she was leaving; these were scars she was determined would mar his flesh forever.

He hated her, because he knew, somewhere beneath his screaming subconscious, he had this coming.

He was a coward. He always had been. Faith was the result of such cowardice.

His life was one failure followed by another.

It had never, however, been like this. His failures had never before led to the ruination of a human being. And even through the blistering pain fusing his ripped flesh, through the agony he knew was to come, he couldn't help but wonder what she'd been like before.

Before he came. Before he destroyed her.

Had she ever laughed at a joke? Had she ever experienced a genuine hug? Had she ever had someone to tuck her in at night and kiss her brow, wishing her sweet dreams ahead? Had she ever loved? Had she ever truly loved?

These wounds were temporal. Skin and blood and sweat. These were things which would fade if he survived. Even if they never fully disappeared, time would weather them away until there was nothing but a glance of what had been done to him. He would heal. He would walk again. He would cry. He would feel.

He would move closer to the question. The ultimate question. The question which refused to give him reprieve even now.

_Where did I go wrong? _

Was it the work of his father? The man who haunted him still—who would haunt him, likely, until he was old and gray, provided he actually got there. There were moments when she moved that Faith looked like his father. Not physically, of course, but it was there. A gleam in her eyes Wesley had only seen but from one other human being.

A gleam which declared Wesley nothing more than a scab—a scab picked too many times, resulting in a mark of permanence with a lasting effect which could not be ignored or denied.

She was approaching again, this time with a jagged piece of glass in her hand. It was the same one she'd used during her demonstration of the _sharp_ torture method, only now it was chilled. He wondered what had taken her so long, though in retrospect, it made perfect sense. Faith wanted him hurt. She wanted him hurt so badly he begged for death, such to the point that when she finally stopped one round he was so surprised he allowed for the possibility of hope.

Strangely, though Wesley knew death was imminent, he didn't expect to meet it tonight. He caught glimpses, of course. Between blackouts and sluggish climbs to consciousness, he saw the immediacy of his own mortal end quite clearly. But there was something holding him back. Something tying him to this world—this temporal plane of rage and despair. This place which would allow a girl so young to stray so far.

He saw his own blood on the glass, captured like a photograph beneath a thin layer of ice.

"Hope you're rested up," Faith said absently, rubbing the makeshift weapon against her thigh. The friction was enough to inspire a thick drop of pinkish water, and she relished in his horror as he watched it splash against the floor. "Don't want you blackin' out on me again."

_No,_ he mused dryly, _we can't have that. _

She held up the piece of glass, her eyes darkening dangerously. "Let's try for cold, yeah? Tell me when it hurts."

In his mind, Wesley didn't make a sound. Out of his mind, his howls of pain were muffled by the gag. And no matter how hard he tried to swallow them, she wrenched every moan from his unwilling lips and took them between her own.

From the sparkle of her black eyes, his pain was delicious.

* * *

Wesley abhorred consciousness. 

Faith was sitting in the open window of the apartment. He didn't know how long she'd been waiting or how long he'd been lost in darkness. His initial instinct was to, effectively, play dead, but the Id of his subconscious released a long-suffering moan at the first surge of agony against his earthly body.

At first, Faith made no move to indicate she'd heard him. She merely sat, tapping the bloodstained glass against her open palm. She didn't flinch when a roughened edge scraped her skin hard enough to draw blood. It was as though she was completely departed from this world. She didn't feel anymore. She didn't react. She was a woman lost somewhere no sane man would ever try to follow.

_Where did I go wrong? _

There must have been a moment in the beginning; a moment where he could have said no. A missed chance. An opportunity lost.

He would do better next time.

"That's refreshing," she said suddenly. "But I'm feeling a little cold."

There was a puddle around her feet. A puddle of water and blood.

His blood.

"What do you say we warm the place up?"

She was moving then. She was in the kitchen. She was flicking a lighter.

"Did you ever wonder if things would have been different if we'd never met?" she asked a second later. There was irony in her voice even if she didn't hear it. Faith might be crazy, but there was a part of her burning with intelligence. She knew he wondered. She knew the question haunted him. She knew, and this was why she threw it in his face.

It was a taunt. All of it. A glance into a world which didn't exist. A world wherein he didn't have to ask himself questions.

_Where did I go wrong? _

"What if you'd had Buffy—and Giles would have been my Watcher? You think you'd still be here right now?" She turned to him, her brows perked appraisingly. "Or would Giles be sitting in that chair?"

The thought of Giles gave Wesley an inexplicable rush of peace. He knew Rupert would never have allowed Faith to trap him. His dealings with the older man had proven enough. Rupert might not look much, but he was strong. He was so much stronger than anyone, even Buffy, likely knew.

"Or is it just like fate?" Faith continued. "You know, there is no choice. You were gonna be here no matter what." She bent over to her table of sadistic goodies and selected a spray can. "You think about that stuff? Fate and destiny?" Seemingly satisfied with her selection, her feet carried her back to Wesley. "I don't."

She held the lighter to the spray, igniting it. A rush of fire shot forward and the room seemed to burn as a result. A long groan filled the air—one colored in his voice—and for the first time all night, Wesley was aware of the thunderous poundings of his heart and the cold, fear-laced sweat dampening his brow.

Pain turned concrete. He realized then just how mortal he was.

How much of the earth he was.

How easily breakable. How easily he could die.

It wouldn't take much.

"Not that any of this is your own fault," Faith went on. "Since this may be the last chance we will have to unload on each other, I feel that it is kind of my duty to tell you that if you'd been a better Watcher, I might have been a more positive role model."

There was no way Faith could know her words hurt more than anything she could do to him, and he wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of knowledge.

He was, after all, only a man.

Again the lighter flicked. Again the air was scorched with fire. "Face it, Wesley, you really were a jerk. Always walking around as if you had some great big stake rammed up your English Channel." A frown befell her face and she knelt forward, jerking the gag down. "I think I want to hear you scream."

"You never will."

Where those words of bravery came from, he knew not. Certainly not himself.

Then she was talking again, but he was through listening. The dark was on its way back.

The dark would reclaim him.

And this time, perhaps, the dark would bury him in the ground.

_Where did I go wrong? _

Perhaps he would never know.

And strangely, painful as the question was, being denied its answer seemed to him a fate worse than death.

**TBC**


	2. Space

**A/N:** Different religions and cultures have varying views on the classical elements. For this story, I am going with the Bön interpretation. 

**Space**

Over the past two years, Wesley had come to understand a fundamental truth about himself: he needed people. He didn't do well when he was alone. When he was left to his thoughts. When he didn't have the support of those he loved. His childhood had been a testament to isolation, and while he had excelled privately in all subjects, he hadn't had friends with whom to share his success. No, Wesley had always been the social outcast. He was the one who brought books with him to the playground. He was the child the stronger, meaner kids threatened when an assignment was due. He was friendless; he always had been.

It was one of the reasons he'd become so pompous. Upon reaching the academy and surviving the induction into the Watcher's Council, Wesley had silently promised to become a version of himself who would never be subject to bullying again. Someone to be taken seriously. An authority figure.

A watcher.

The truth, however, wasn't as forgiving. He could change his looks, his clothes, the people around him, but he couldn't change himself.

He was still the same little boy he'd been in school. Prefect. Head Boy. Pansy-arsed know-it-all.

Isolated.

This time because he knew he needed space.

Wesley couldn't draw his eyes away from his apartment window. He was parked in a stiff wooden chair, staring through plated glass at nothing in particular, and he had been for hours. There wasn't a muscle in his body which didn't ache, but pain was deserved, and he made no attempt to quell it with ice packs or other rudimentary healing techniques.

_Where did I go wrong? _

The question hadn't haunted him in years. The night following his abduction, following Faith's slow, methodical torture of his worn body, he had taken a step toward the light. Toward righting the wrongs of his past. The Council had come to him, and he had turned them down. He had proved to himself that he wasn't the man he'd once been. He hadn't allowed them to take Faith no matter what she'd done to him, what realities she'd forced him to face, because he knew what she meant to Angel.

Redemption. Faith, in many ways, was Angel's redemption.

It startled Wesley how very much he and Angel were alike. Both had perfection in the form of light, but they were both similarly drawn to the dark. Angel in the form of Buffy, whose light he'd tarnished with dark, and Wesley in Fred.

Fred. Just the thought of her made him ache. She was too pure, too bright for him. The closer he became to her, the further he felt. For a while, he thought he could fool himself into believing she could save him. Into believing he was the sort of man who could be good for her—do things right by her. He'd believed he wouldn't taint her with the inner darkness he'd fought so long to repress. He thought he'd come far enough.

He'd been wrong.

Oh, Wesley was prepared for the arguments. Cordelia had been ringing him nonstop, begging him to talk to her. Reassuring him with message after message that what had happened hadn't been his fault. It had been the touch of a callous devil who enjoyed watching humanity destroy itself. He'd touched Billy's blood, and therefore the aspect of the demon had tainted his soul.

It wasn't Wesley who had pursued Fred through the halls of the Hyperion Hotel. It wasn't Wesley who had remarked on how she adorned provocative dresses because she was a whore. It wasn't Wesley who had tried to kill her because he yearned to touch her.

It wasn't Wesley. It was Billy.

And yet Wesley was the one with the memories. With the guilt. It was Wesley who had to live with the knowledge of what he'd nearly done to the woman he knew he was falling in love with.

Fred, with her impassable perfection. Perhaps the time for when they would have been perfect for each other had already come and gone, if it had ever existed at all.

He didn't know. The only thing he knew was the thought of meeting her eyes made his soul ache.

He feared touching her, knowing what sins he'd nearly committed with his hands. He feared looking at her only to find himself locked within his own body once more, unable to do anything but watch as she screamed and ran for her life. As she trembled in fear because of _him._ Because of Wesley.

Prefect Wesley. Head Boy Wesley. Wesley Wyndam-Pryce of the Watcher's Council. Wes Pryce, Rogue Demon Hunter.

Wesley of Angel Investigations. He was the one who signed the paychecks. Who assigned the missions. Who called the shots. Angel had walked out and he was the boss now.

They had traded one demon for another.

He found himself inexplicably thinking of Faith. Was this how it had been for her? Falling into darkness without anything on which to hold? Nothing to break her fall? No friends to lean upon, no hope to rely on. Nothing but a predetermined path of destruction.

He remembered watching her the night she'd tortured him. The crazed gleam in her eyes, her body tight with a rampant need for destruction. She'd sizzled and fused, trying so hard to convince herself she was a creature without conscience. A creature without a soul. Someone who could do whatever she wanted, kill whoever she wanted, and destroy whoever she wanted without feeling the effects of the pain she caused.

Wesley wasn't stupid. He knew it had started like this.

Just like this. In an empty room, reflecting upon her sins. Knowing there was an answer; all she needed to do was reach out for help. Solitude, in the end, would only get her killed.

Faith was in prison, now. She'd taken the first step toward rehabilitation. There was little chance she would ever breathe free air again. And though Wesley hadn't seen her since she offered her confession to authorities, there was something which told him she was freer now than she'd ever been in the open. She was at peace with herself, or at least on the way to peace. Her demons had stopped screaming.

There were times when Wesley's own darkness scared him; during those times, he liked to think of Faith. She had gone as dark as any human he'd known, but she was saving herself. She was fighting through her darkness. She was reaching for light.

And yet, something else rang true to him. Something she'd said the night she'd ripped him apart.

Fate.

Perhaps for Faith to reach peace, she needed the darkness. She'd had little other option in her upbringing. Her mother, the state of her childhood, her lack of friends, the string of men she'd entertained before barreling into Sunnydale. Angel had told Wesley shortly after Faith's incarceration that, among other things, Faith had lost her virginity at the age of eleven while staying in a home. He never mentioned whether or not it was voluntary—if she'd wanted it in her quest to become a woman. The point didn't seem to matter. What did matter was everything which remained unsaid.

The fact was that Faith's path had virtually been constructed for her. Yes, she'd had choices and yes, she'd made the wrong ones. However, she'd similarly had little to no guidance _which_ choice was right. She was a good person, victimized by bad circumstances.

Wesley couldn't claim the same fate. His childhood hadn't been idyllic, but he hadn't suffered through half as much as Faith had. His mother had coddled him, his father had dismissed him; he'd had every opportunity to make something of himself. From the minute he learned to walk, the lines of _right_ and _wrong, yes_ and _no_ had been drawn in permanent ink. Wesley's life hadn't been constructed on a lack of discipline—rather an abundance of it.

Faith was redeemable, then. Circumstances had made her who she was.

Circumstances had made _him_ who _he_ was.

And yet, in so many ways, they were the same.

Someone knocked at the door. He didn't move. He'd been expecting visitors for two days.

"Wesley?" a soft voice called through the wooden barrier. "Wesley, it's me, Fred."

He turned his head slightly, his breath catching in his throat. He didn't want to see her now, but his feet wouldn't obey him. In seconds, he was walking to the door and pulling it open. In seconds, he was lost in her warm, concerned eyes.

Concern he didn't deserve.

Fred frowned immediately and raised a hand to his face. "Oh," she gasped softly, "does that hurt?"

She was referring to a bruise he'd sustained while falling through the rotted floors of one of the Hyperion's many rooms. Possessed, he'd walked into her booby-trap—thank God—and she'd managed to render him unconscious. And when he'd awakened, the spell Billy had cast over him with his murderous DNA had faded.

There was nothing left but scars.

The sort which never faded.

Nevertheless, Wesley couldn't abide her touching him. Not now. Not after what he'd done. He turned away from her before her gentle fingers could find his face, a long shudder commanding his body.

She flinched at his rejection, and while it hurt, he forced himself not to comfort her. "Sorry," she whispered. "I left a bunch of messages."

He knew. He'd listened to her over and over again all night. His answering service was a tribute to the women in his life. Cordelia and Fred. Fred and Cordelia. Both calling him nonstop. Both begging him to pick up the phone.

He hadn't. And now Fred was here.

"Yes," Wesley heard himself saying. "I meant to call you back. I'm sorry." The words served as a mental collapse and he felt something within him shatter. He looked her in the eyes and bore all. "I'm _so_ sorry."

Fred smiled tenderly. "Wesley, you gotta come back to work."

"How can I?"

It was obviously not the answer she'd been expecting. "What do you mean?" Fred repeated, bewildered. "How can you _not?_ You're the boss. We need you. You took a few days off—that's good. We all did. But now it's time to come back."

"Fred…I tried to kill you."

There it was. It was between them now. The thing they both knew, solidified in words.

However, it didn't haunt her as it haunted him. There was no condemnation in her eyes. There was only light and forgiveness, and trust beyond trust. Nothing he deserved. And yet it was her words which rendered him a half-man. "That wasn't you."

"How can you know that?" he countered. "Something inside me was forced to the surface. Something primal. Something…"

"Do you wanna kill me?"

The question was asked bluntly, and his reaction was instinctive. "Oh God, no."

"It wasn't something in you, Wesley. It was something that was done _to_ you."

He looked at her and he knew she believed her words. He knew she believed them, and it made him want to collapse in awe of her. This girl he had nearly destroyed. This girl he feared he loved beyond reason.

Fred might believe in him, but he didn't think he could believe in himself. Not after what had happened. Not after what he'd nearly done.

"I don't know what kind of man I am anymore," he whispered.

He didn't mean to say it, but it was out there.

He wished it wasn't. Fred's faith, while invaluable, was likewise empty. She couldn't see inside him. She couldn't see what he saw.

Thus she had no answer to give him but, "Well, I do. You're a good man."

Her trust was precious.

"Will I see you back at the office?"

Wesley nodded, choked. "Yeah."

"Good."

And that was it. She offered a watery smile, and it was the last thing he saw before he closed the door.

Before he broke down weeping.

Before the inevitable query resurfaced.

_Where did I go wrong?_

He was terrified it was a question with many, many answers.

**TBC**


	3. Water

**Water**

He could hear her crying.

He remembered the first time he'd heard her cry. The _only_ other time. Outside a dead man's apartment as she attempted to bring Angel to her mercy with angry fists before finally sinking to her knees and begging him to kill her. He'd heard her cry then. He'd remembered that night that she was truly human.

Now, she was almost _too_ human for him. Too real. Too tangible. He heard her sobbing under the weight of the showerhead. Heard the crack and crash of cement and knew without needing anything that she was hurting herself. She was forcing her hands to bleed in order to feel, even if all of her was a mess of broken bones and torn muscles.

It was bizarre having her here. Bizarre, but strangely right.

Even under these circumstances, it felt like he had brought her home.

She shouldn't be alone. She was aching in ways he didn't wish to fathom. Wesley sighed heavily and rose to his feet, tentatively approaching his bathroom door. Though she might not wish his company, especially now, there was a certain sort of intimacy they had already attained. Intimacy which didn't require the union of bodies or anything primal in the slightest.

They were kindred souls.

Wesley didn't bother to knock. He pushed the door open and stepped boldly across the threshold.

"Is everything all right?" he asked softly. The mirrors were steamed, the air too thick to make out shapes. The blurred vision of her nude body struck him in ways he never thought possible, but he forced his first instinct aside with casual ease.

Faith was panting hard, her hands braced against the tattered remains of what had once been his shower wall. "Y'know, Wes," she said, her voice tempered but strained. "If you wanted a peek, you coulda just come in here and watched me strip. Would've been a helluva lot hotter than this."

"I heard—"

"Yeah. Shower. Sorry." She kicked at a chunk of concrete with her bare foot. "I just…I needed to let out, you know?"

He swallowed hard and nodded. He knew. God, he knew. If he had even half the strength Faith possessed, his shower wall would have been dismantled with his own tortured fists months ago. Back when he sank into the shadows—shut out by the people he cared about due to his misreading of an ancient prophecy.

He had tried to rescue Connor, and in doing so had damned him. Damned him and destroyed Angel.

In some way, what was happening now was Wesley's fault. No matter what he'd done in the interim to make amends. To put things right between them. He'd pulled Angel from the ocean, and yet there was nothing which could fix the void.

Their relationship was permanently damaged. All because Wesley had tried to save his son.

"I know how tempting it is to hide, Faith," Wesley said, swallowing hard and taking a step forward. She had turned to face him fully, unashamed of her nudity in ways which had nothing to do with the rippled shower-glass separating them. "To vent your frustrations on walls and save your screams for your pillow while bottling everything else inside."

Faith snickered appreciatively but didn't say anything.

"I've been there."

"I don't think so, Boss," she retorted. "I get it. You went through the Change. Guess the other one finally dropped, yeah? Your voice stopped squeaking and you gave it away to some very, _very_ special girl. Don't think that means you got some special insight. I'm the way I am because it's—"

"I don't have insight on what you're going through. You're right."

Faith blinked and tossed the shower door open, leaning against the doorway. "You don't? So you're not in here, trying not to stare at my tits while under the guise that because you got a little rough and dark you suddenly _get_ me?"

Wesley didn't break his eyes away from hers, despite the wholly male need to drag his gaze downward. "I only mean I know how it is to be isolated," he replied. "To keep your pain inside and hope it will ease with time. But we both know where that leads with you."

"Hey. I'm not the kinda girl to make the same mistake twice."

"No. You're the sort of girl to make the same mistake over and over again. Twice is selling yourself short."

Faith snorted. "Well…you know it's the definition of insanity, right? Doin' the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. You think I'm crazy, Wes?" She shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first."

"I think you need people, and you don't wish to admit it. Because needing people makes you weak, doesn't it, Faith?" Wesley swallowed hard and took another step forward. "And after all this time, even after facing your ghosts, you're afraid to be perceived as weak."

She stared at him for a long minute before breaking away with a sharp, angry laugh. "Trying to play therapist? Don't bother."

"I'm trying to tell you…I'm here."

Faith's eyes darted to his crotch, her brows arching appraisingly. "I'll say."

"You can't change the subject."

"Well, you _can_ change your shorts, right? That looks wicked painful." She paused thoughtfully. "Or is that the real reason you came in here, Wes? Hot naked jailbird in your shower. You busted me out—I pretty much owe you. Want me to suck you off? Give you a taste of what—"

"Stop."

"Right. Stop. Drop. Open my mouth real wide."

Wesley frowned and claimed another step. "Why do you do that?"

It was small, nearly indiscernible, but it was there. A flicker of fear in her eyes and a waver in her confident stance. Her arms were crossed but she couldn't hide how hard she was trembling. Her body was worn and bruised, the wounds which hadn't yet stopped bleeding forming purple patches against her sunkissed skin. The defenses she'd built around herself were nearly indestructible. She could bat an eye, curl her lips in a way guaranteed to wrap any man around her little finger, and offer a smile which promised nothing but pleasure if he just stopped talking. Wesley couldn't imagine many men strong enough to push beyond her greatest weapon—her dark, alluring self—to reach the scared little girl inside.

He was determined to show her that he was different.

"Do what?" she asked. If she was aware of how hard her voice shook, she didn't betray it.

"Devalue yourself."

She quirked a brow. "Huh? If I could do that alone, I wouldn't need a vibrator."

Wesley's lips tugged upwards reluctantly. "You equate yourself with the sum of your parts," he explained. "You don't think you have anything to offer but your body."

"I got a wicked punch, too. Or don't you remember?"

"I remember."

"Then you oughta know you're risking—"

"You're not alone, Faith."

She spread her arms. "Who've I got?"

"Me."

"Yeah. Till Angelus is stuffed back inside Angel's soul. Wanna take a bet at how fast you'll reach for the phone? That's how good I _got_ you, Wes." She paused. "Or will you do it yourself? Rassle me to the ground and drag me to the nearest precinct, 'cause I _got_ you so fucking well?"

Wesley didn't blink. "It is my understanding that prison is designed to rehabilitate people," he replied. "You are not the girl you were when you went in."

"You think?"

"I know." He paused. "I believe in you, Faith. You don't have to be alone." His eyes fluttered downward, focusing on the crumbled chunks of his bathroom wall. "If you need to beat on something, beat on me. I won't fight you. I will still be here when it's over." His gaze found hers again. "You don't have to do anything alone."

The look in Faith's eyes was unlike anything he'd ever seen. Deep, fathomless confusion wrapped in gratitude. The face of a girl who didn't believe she could exist except in the body of someone else. And before he could say anything, do anything, she had seized him by the shirt and tugged him to her.

For an insane instant, he thought she meant to kiss him. She didn't. Instead, she folded her bruised body in his arms and began to cry.

She cried, and he held her. She cried under a cold baptism of shower water, holding onto him as though he was the only thing keeping her anchored to this world.

Faith was crying. This girl who had wandered through darkness. Her face had been a ghost of hope throughout his own trial. He'd wandered through Hell over the past year, clawing desperately for freedom. Clawing toward the light.

He tainted everything he touched, but he couldn't taint Faith. He couldn't.

But perhaps—just perhaps—he had a chance at saving her.

And if he succeeded, he at least had the hope that she would save him back.

**TBC**


End file.
